Second Chances
by Kez Mani
Summary: Wheatley thought he'd be stuck in space forever, but by chance he meets Tak on her way to redeem herself to her leaders. He offers her help and things from Aperture, but like many of his ideas, this turns out to be a bad one... Rated K for content in later chapters


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"Space. Space everywhere."

Wheatley groaned and rolled his eye. He didn't know why he ended his regularly scheduled sleep mode anymore. The fact that he could use them to tell how much time had crossed his mind, but he couldn't remember how many he'd gone through. Oh, and he dreamed for some reason, mostly about Chell, GlaDOS, and those two little robots he'd found. His most recent one had starred that awful, awful, bird, only it was humongous, and had gobbled up everyone in sight, starting with the testing robots. Then GlaDOS blamed him for attracting it and showed him a whole testing chamber full of potatoes which he had apparently made, then screamed as she got ripped apart, piece by piece. At the end of the dream the monstrous crow had seized him in its jaws, and Chell was trying to pull him out, only to be swallowed up too. He shuddered and fixed his eye on the Space core. "Hey, Space. Do you dream?"

"I dream. I dream about space."

"Right. Should have expected that." A roaring sound registered on his Aperture Science Audio Collectors, and he swiveled himself to see the source of the noise. His "pupil" dilated instantly when he saw the spaceship flying towards him. "Hey... Hey! Stop! You're going to hit-"

A strange windshield shattered around him, and he hit someone in the gut. Someone small and green. "Oh, hello. Sorry I hit you, but you sort of hit me, so... I guess that makes us even?"

Whoever he'd just hit grunted and pushed him off as the windshield rebuilt itself. "I don't know what you are, but if you damaged my squeedly spooch, I'll -"

"I'm sorry, your _what_ now?" He'd never heard of something called a squeedily spooch, and he hoped it wasn't something important. "If I broke it, it's entirely your fault. You're the one who rammed into me."

Whoever crashed into him pulled him up into her lap to examine him. He examined her as well, taking in her deep purple eyes, a mole on her cheek, a pair of antennae sticking from her head, and a weird wire sticking from her forehead. "Hm. I'm assuming you're a space probe from some backwards planet. Why they would build artificial intelligence into you is beyond me." She said as she turned him over.

"Space probe? No, no, no. I'm an Aperture Science Personality Core. I was never meant to go into space." After she pointed his eye back at herself, he added: "Named Wheatley."

"Aperture... I've heard that name somewhere... something about a company that went bankrupt... " Her eyes widened. "The Weenie Human! He mentioned it to me!" She glared down at the core in her lap. "You're from _Earth_!"

"Um... er... I'm sorry, love, but I don't understand the dialect you're using!" He realized that she wasn't about to be fooled by his little trick. "Look, I didn't even want to leave Earth! It was a mistake, really!"

She took a few breaths, presumably to calm herself down. "Okay, fine. You didn't mean to leave Earth. Neither did I. Now, I'm going to Meekrob to grab a resistance leader, then I'm going back to Earth to go kill someone. Can you perhaps help me?"

"Help you? I can do, uh, tests. And death traps. And, perhaps there's something at Aperture you'd like." he offered. "Something like the portal gun, or, uh, testing robots... potatoes, there's lots of potatoes. There's even an evil bird."

"Portal gun? That sounds like something I'd like." She grinned in a way that made Wheatley uncomfortable. Then she pulled out something that looked like a tiny drill. "Do you think I could plug this into you? It contains all my secret base plans."

"Well, there's no harm in trying." He flipped his inner part around. "There should be three little ports back there. Can you see them?"

"Yes... you're kind of primitive... but I guess you'll be fine. Hold on, this might hurt – that is, if you can feel pain."

"No, it shouldn't hurt at – _ouch!_" Wheatley cried as the first plug went in. "Are you sure you're doing it right? Because I'm pretty sure that's a sign that you're not doing it right. Or maybe it is, and it's absolutely fine, and in that case I'll just have to deal with it."

"I missed. Sorry. To be fair, they are kind of small..." The pain instantly went away when she pulled the plug out. Then there was a pleasant tingly sensation (though not as pleasant as when he was testing). "There. Now it's in the right spot." Twice more, and Wheatley prepared to plunge his mind into the little drill-thingy. He flipped himself again to find that something was horribly wrong.

"I... I can't do it if you're watching."

She shot him a glare full of venom. "What do you mean you can't?"

"I can't. It's just... weird to have someone watching while I'm hacking, or programming, or..." He trailed of when she growled and shut her eyes. "Alright. Here we go." As he opened a few connections into the device, his wonder and curiosity circuits kicked into overdrive. In his mind he saw a virtual representation of the base. The thing was huge, almost as big as Aperture! "Are you sure they won't be able to find us?"

"Absolutely. This ship has a radar-jamming device, and the base has plans for it too." she said with a hint of pride. "Plus, we'll be completely underground."

"Got it." He hummed to himself as he programmed in service rails.

"Can you perhaps make the death traps less deadly? I need to bring him back alive."

"Oh, uh, alright." Sullenly, he removed plans for crushers with spikes and fire. Perhaps that design could wait. "By the way, you never told me your name. I think that's the proper thing to do when you're in a partnership."

"It's Tak. My name is Tak."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Tak." He said as he finished his last few details. "I'd shake your hand if I had one."

"Proximity warning. Planet Ahead."

"Aaaugh! What was that?" he yelped.

"Relax, it's just the proximity sensor." She opened her eyes and tapped at the controls. "We're about to land." The ship sank through the clouds, and soon a barren field came into view. As the ship touched down, she unplugged the device and tossed it out into the dirt, where it burrowed into the ground. Tremors vibrated the area as the base built itself. The ship was slowly lowered into the expanding place. "Here we are. Home sweet home, until we catch Lard Nar." She glanced up at the service rail. "What... oh, you go on that thing." Tak picked him up and plugged him in. "There. Can you show me where you put the traps?'

"Oh! Of course. Right this way." The two spent the rest of the day reviewing Wheatley's traps, and redesigning the ones that Tak disapproved of. When they were done, Tak sighed and sat in a strange looking chair. "I swear, I should have designed some of these myself." She said as she rubbed her temples.

"I don't know how that fire-shooting crusher got there! Honestly!"

She sighed. "If MiMi hadn't been taken away from me..."

"MiMi? Was she your pet?"

She scowled. "Never mind."

"Alright." He glanced around. "So... are we going to go after your guy tonight?"

"No, he's probably asleep by now. Tomorrow we'll try to lure him here." She said darkly. "Perhaps somebody saw us and are going to tell him once he's awake." Tak chuckled. "He might just pay us a visit. If not, I'll think of... something."

Wheatley suddenly felt nervous again. "Ah... I think my sleep mode's about to start, so... bye!" He slid away before she could ask any questions.


End file.
